Hacking The status of Gateway and A9LH

[Kazuma77]

Do I still have the firm protection after doing this ?

It doesn't break firm protection on CFWs that have it. Luma, Cakes (with the firm protection patch selected), and even GW 3.7.1 should all be safe to update with (I wouldn't recommend GW 3.7.1, its untested). Just don't use GW 4.0a to update (unless you're looking to take a SysNAND from 4.5 to 9.2 with SysUpadter or Smash Bros., now that it's actually great for, not having the firm protection).

I think the answer you're looking for is to just avoid the beta "Launcher.dat" file. Firm protection only matters when you're updating though, or playing with NATIVE_FIRM CIAs. So, if you DNS block updates until you want to perform one, it's a non-issue. You can just boot with Luma, unblock, update, re-block, then go back to using whichever version of GW you prefer, new unprotected version included.

 

[NEO117]

If you remove EmuNAND entirely, it will boot to GW Sysnand automatically without going through the menu. Let me find the source and I'll edit this post in a bit.

Edit: http://gbatemp.net/threads/the-status-of-gateway-and-a9lh.427889/page-44#post-6396192

Didn't work at all. Just blackscreen.

Eh... I'll keep Emunand I guess.

 

[zes]

Didn't work at all. Just blackscreen.

Eh... I'll keep Emunand I guess.

I saw same with GW 3.7.1 launcher.dat. The leaked 4.0a one works, though.

 

[Kazuma77]

I agree with this sentiment. I find it a lot easier to have one card dedicated to 3DS games that I'm either trying out or will only play through once. That leaves the internal card to be filled with homebrew, DLC, ROMs for emulators, and 3DS games that will see frequent play, like Smash Bros and Hyrule Warriors.


If I did this and also swapped out stage1 with the SELECT-START variant, then would this be the intended behavior:

Default: Boot GW
Hold Select: Boot CFW
Hold Start: Boot A9LH updater

Just noticed this. Yes, that is how it would work, but I would not recommend using SELECT if you're planning to use Luma -- you'll get taken to the configure screen every time (unless you're fast enough releasing it). If you're planning to use Luma with it's chain loader, you're best going with something that uses A for the first hotkey (A-B or A-START). All A does in Luma is tell it to use the defaults (i.e. ignore persistence and boot the default NAND). So using that as your hotkey to boot it is ideal. As long as you don't set something to A in Luma's chain loader, A can coexist just fine with most other hotkeys, from what I can tell.

I'd heavily recommend going with a BootCTR9 or CBM9 setup though if you're going to make GW the default. The default 1 second BootCTR9 gives you to select a button (and you can just hit A to run your default, presumably Luma, faster as long as you leave A undefined) makes it easy to release the CFW hotkey and press the boot manager hotkey in time (with some practice -- you release the A9LH hotkey too soon, it picks the default, the trick is to release when you see the backlight come on, then quickly select your hotkey). CBM9 is menu-based, so it should be fine. However, I would not run it with A or X, because those are used to select and erase (respectively) within the menu. A d-pad direction is probably the best choice.

Anyway, definitely don't choose SELECT if you're planning to make that CFW Luma. CBM9 might be OK with it. I forget.

Didn't work at all. Just blackscreen.

Eh... I'll keep Emunand I guess.

From what others are saying, 3.7.1 still requires you to hold L to bring up the menu, then hold B, hit A, release B, hit X, even without an EmuNAND, but 4.0a will boot straight into SysNAND. You might also try earlier releases. I know it used to automatically boot SysNAND without an EmuNAND (or with EmuNAND deliberately hidden from it -- I used do that all the time with a hex editor before the SysNAND combo was added).

 

[NEO117]

I saw same with GW 3.7.1 launcher.dat. The leaked 4.0a one works, though.

Ahh, in that case I'll wait for the official release.

 

[royant1]

Just tried @liomajor solution and it took me exactly 1 minute to make everything work. Awesome job!

 

[satelman]

If you remove EmuNAND entirely, it will boot to GW Sysnand automatically without going through the menu. Let me find the source and I'll edit this post in a bit.

Edit: http://gbatemp.net/threads/the-status-of-gateway-and-a9lh.427889/page-44#post-6396192

How did you manage to boot directly into GW? I used a freshly formatted SD card with Luma and GW files, but the screen goes black and nothing happens when I enter GW mode. Any ideas? How did you remove your emunand?

I'm using @liomajor's solution (three stage 2 payloads + X+Y stage 1 payload) without emunand, and I tested it with both GW 3.7.1 and 4.0a launchers. They didn't work. Blackscreen. Please help.

 

[liomajor]

How did you manage to boot directly into GW? I used a freshly formatted SD card with Luma and GW files, but the screen goes black and nothing happens when I enter GW mode. Any ideas? How did you remove your emunand?

I'm using @liomajor's solution (3 stage 2 payloads + A+B stage 1 payload) without emunand, and I tested it with both GW 3.7.1 and 4.0a launchers. They didn't work. Blackscreen. Please help.

Does luma3ds work loading arm9loaderhax.bin directly without bootmanager?

Gw loading sysnand should work without emunand, redscreen displays that gw payload was triggered.

 

[satelman]

How did you manage to boot directly into GW? I used a freshly formatted SD card with Luma and GW files, but the screen goes black and nothing happens when I enter GW mode. Any ideas? How did you remove your emunand?

I'm using @liomajor's solution (3 stage payloads + A+B stage 1 payload) without emunand, and I tested it with both GW 3.7.1 and 4.0a launchers. They didn't work.

Does luma3ds work loading arm9loaderhax.bin directly without bootmanager?

Gw loading sysnand should work without emunand, redscreen displays that gw payload was triggered.

Well, I'm using Luma + other payloads (Decrypt9WIP, and so on) through arm9select. Could that be the reason why after pressing A GW goes to blackscreen? (if a press L, I can go to the GW menu and select sysnand, but, if I select Classic Mode, it also goes to blackscreen. Honestly, I don't understand this behavior.)

 

[liomajor]

Classic mode should work with inserted gw card for fw up to 9.2.
Beyond was never tested.

 

[satelman]

Classic mode should work with inserted gw card for fw up to 9.2.
Beyond was never tested.

So, do you mean that classic mode and direct GW launch from a9lh without emunand are the same thing? I'm using sysnand v10.3. So that's why it doesn't work, isn't?

 

[liomajor]

I suggest using sysnand up to 9.2 or try gw menu, press and hold b @ first option, it should switch to loading sysnand, execute via a then x.

 

[cultopi]

Thanks to liomajor for the work around, but GW team still did not fix 3D tracking........

 

[satelman]

I suggest using sysnand up to 9.2 or try gw menu, press and hold b @ first option, it should switch to loading sysnand, execute via a then x.

Yes, that's what I do (GW menu, a+b, x for sysnand). Thanks. I guess there is no faster/simpler way to get into GW + sysnand, unfortunately, right?

 

[Temptress Cerise]

Yes, that's what I do (GW menu, b+a, x for sysnand). Thanks. I guess there are no faster/simpler way to get into GW + sysnand, unfortunately, right?

My setup boots directly into sysNAND, when booting into GW Mode. I used EmuNAND9 to format my SD and remove my emuNAND.

I don't have GW set as the default. Luma3DS is still my default. o3DS 11.0 sysNAND, Samsung NAND. 3.7.1 Launcher.dat used.

 

[Kazuma77]

How did you manage to boot directly into GW? I used a freshly formatted SD card with Luma and GW files, but the screen goes black and nothing happens when I enter GW mode. Any ideas? How did you remove your emunand?

I'm using @liomajor's solution (3 stage 2 payloads + A+B stage 1 payload) without emunand, and I tested it with both GW 3.7.1 and 4.0a launchers. They didn't work. Blackscreen. Please help.

Formatting an SD card doesn't necessarily wipe everything off of it. It could be detecting remnants of an old EmuNAND or RedNAND. Have a look at your card in a hex editor as a physical device (not as a logical drive). If you see "GATEWAYNAND" at the start, change at least one of the letters. Also, if you see NCSD in the 0x200 to 0x400 range, wipe it out. If it still doesn't work, I don't know what it could be. I'll try to replicate the issue later today, and see if I can find a version that works. I know you used to be able to boot to SysNAND just by changing one letter in "GATEWAYNAND" to something else (makes it look like there is no EmuNAND) before the SysNAND option was added . So, it obviously used to boot SysNAND straight.

Thanks to liomajor for the work around, but GW team still did not fix 3D tracking........

Well, the goal of the project was to get the launcher running in existing A9LH implementations, not reverse engineer the launcher and give the code an overhaul. Fixing the bugs within the launcher is Gateway's responsibility. I know, you'd think they would have taken care of that one in all this time, but, at least it has an easy work-around.

 

[liomajor]

I can't fix proplems that are out of my hand, for example launcher.dat.

This includes 3d, headtracking, topscreen flickering, issues for loosing savegame, nand restore,
generating fragmentation, homebrew not working inside gw/classic mode, not detecting region...

Yes, gw has a lot problems to solve and changes to make for working properly.

 

[satelman]

My setup boots directly into sysNAND, when booting into GW Mode. I used EmuNAND9 to format my SD and remove my emuNAND.

I don't have GW set as the default. Luma3DS is still my default. o3DS 11.0 sysNAND, Samsung NAND. 3.7.1 Launcher.dat used.

Thanks for the info, @Temptress Cerise. I will try emunand9.

Formatting an SD card doesn't necessarily wipe everything off of it. It could be detecting remnants of an old EmuNAND or RedNAND. Have a look at your card in a hex editor as a physical device (not as a logical drive). If you see "GATEWAYNAND" at the start, change at least one of the letters. Also, if you see NCSD in the 0x200 to 0x400 range, wipe it out. If it still doesn't work, I don't know what it could be. I'll try to replicate the issue later today, and see if I can find a version that works. I know you used to be able to boot to SysNAND just by changing one letter in "GATEWAYNAND" to something else (makes it look like there is no EmuNAND) before the SysNAND option was added . So, it obviously used to boot SysNAND straight.

Thanks for the info, @Kazuma77!

Thank you, @Temptress Cerise & @Kazuma77!

Formatting my SD --that STILL had remnants of the emunand after a simple formatting-- with the emunand9 tool did the trick!

Now, I can enter the GW in sysnand mode by simply booting and pressing ONE key!! Awesome!

Using @liomajor's three Stage 2 + X+Y stage 1, GW launcher 3.7.1 and sysnand 10.3 without emunand (plus Luma3DS 5.5 + arm9select and a9lh payloads, such as Decryp9WIP, emunand9, and so on).

Best of ALL worlds!

 

[urherenow]

Does anybody else get stuck on a black screen while trying to load sysnand from the GW menu? My sysnand is still 9.2, and I'm using the 4.0a Gateway build. This issue is probably related to why I'm unable to run any nds flash carts...

If it helps, I'm also using @liomajor 's 3 stage 2 files, 2_2 being the one that uses A to boot GW. Forcing the menu or letting it auto-boot into emunand works just fine. Only sysnand seems to be broken. Autobooting Luma3ds into sysnand via bootanim9 works as well.

Edit: never mind. It was just a fluke. I booted sysnand in GW mode and nds flash carts still don't work. Tried to launch a legitimately owned Four swords... doesn't work. Works fine in Luma. And I have yet to see a video of GBA VC or NDS flashcarts working in GW mode. Until I do, I assume anyone who says it works is on crack.

 

[Rasa39]

Does anybody else get stuck on a black screen while trying to load sysnand from the GW menu? My sysnand is still 9.2, and I'm using the 4.0a Gateway build. This issue is probably related to why I'm unable to run any nds flash carts...

If it helps, I'm also using @liomajor 's 3 stage 2 files, 2_2 being the one that uses A to boot GW. Forcing the menu or letting it auto-boot into emunand works just fine. Only sysnand seems to be broken. Autobooting Luma3ds into sysnand via bootanim9 works as well.

I'm running the same setup but with n3ds sysnand 11.0 and I've had this happen a few times when launching gateway (although I use 3.7.1). I think it might be that the gw code itself doesn't have 100% boot rate even though the launcher does under a9lh.
But then again there could be something that just isn't right with your sysnand because I've also noticed little hiccups and "glitches" when doing regular stuff on my sysnand that I never had to deal with on emunand.

You could backup your sysnand, format a couple times and then try again and see if you still black screen.
Maybe updating to 11.0 would fix it for you as well but idk (would still backup 9.2 in any case if you haven't already)